Rental Moving Tips and Checklists

Why Short Moves are Harder than Distant Moves

Short moves are hard because effort and time are often underestimatedBy Courtney Ronan

Before moving to a townhouse right around the corner from my apartment, a friend warned me, "Those short-distance moves are the most difficult."

I couldn't understand why ... that is, until a few weeks later, when the moving preparations and transport of my possessions began. The primary reason why such moves are so difficult is that we convince ourselves that it's going to be easy. We can have multiple trips, bring our belongings over one bit at a time, and break the load into more manageable pieces.

Here's a news flash: That's not easier. It's harder. Moving cross-country is a comparative breeze, in a sense, because you're forced to load everything up at one time and haul it to your destination once. When you move locally, you delude yourself into thinking that you really don't own as much as you thought you did, and it really won't be that labor-intensive to bring it over in several smaller loads.

Then something strange happens. Your car seems to shrink as you realize that it really won't hold as much as you thought it would. The number of trips between point A and point B increases exponentially, and finally you're so worn out, you swear you'll never move again -- or if you do, it will be somewhere far, far away.

Another side effect of local moves: Many of us convince ourselves we don't need the services of a professional moving company. You'll just move it all in your car... why pay for a professional when they're not traveling any great distance?

Here's another revelation: Your possessions break just as easily when they're in your care (sometimes more easily). While loading up everything into your car at once, especially considering that you're weary and trying to do the entire job on your own, it's quite possible that you're going to either damage or destroy some of your valuables.

You're more likely to take shortcuts on your packing, tossing things into paper bags, open boxes or just by themselves into the back seat of your car.

For the sake of your worldly goods and your own peace of mind, not to mention your tolerance level for moving heavy loads, you should consider hiring a professional moving company. They won't look at you cross-eyed when you tell them that the distance between your old and new residences is a mere 10 minutes.

The most valid reason of all to hire a professional moving company is your furniture. You may have several large friends who kindly volunteer their services to help you move the heavy, bulky pieces, and they might do the job well. But it's clearly in your best interests to have insurance for your furniture in the event it becomes damaged. Your chances of having a piece lost, of course, are much, much less given the distance you're traveling.

You may want to consider hiring movers to haul your furniture and heaviest items, and assuming the rest of the job yourself. Just keep in mind this is a big job. From your dishes and appliances to your decorative pieces, clothes, shoes and office supplies, you own a lot more than you probably realize.

But the good news is that you can make short-distance moving manageable. Here's where the aid of friends can be utilized.

Your friends and family can divide up the job, each of them transporting several boxes in their own vehicles, even over the course of a week's time if you have the luxury of easing your way into your new residence.

You may even hiring a moving company for furniture, then rent a small truck for everything else and transporting those items yourself. Truck-rental companies will allow you to keep the vehicle 24 to 48 hours, enough time to make multiple trips between residences if necessary and complete the job in a cost-effective manner.

If you can afford it, however, nothing beats the convenience of hiring a moving company to haul everything you own. To cut huge costs, purchase your own packaging material, and pack everything yourself.

Furthermore, instead of buying packaging material, pay visits to local retailers and grocery stores either late in the evenings or on weekly delivery days, and ask them if you can their boxes off their hands. Nine times out of 10, they'll happily agree.

If you know someone at a retail store or grocery store, such connections can be invaluable; before my own move, a friend not only contributed boxes from the store where she worked; she also threw in a few rolls of packing tape to boot.

Ask around your office, as well, to see if any of your colleagues have boxes they'd be willing to unload. Because of frequent office supply deliveries, your employer probably has plenty of boxes merely waiting to be thrown out.

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